Stronger Than Diamond
by Brisngir
Summary: Strike. Wince. Pull back. Strike. Wince. Repeat. All he does is rage against this barrier. Is he even making progress? It feels like he's been doing this forever. Maybe he has. One shot. Inspired by an episode of Doctor Who.


**A/N: Another story, this one not as terrible as _I Title This One Victory,_ which is in fact the metric I use to determine how beyond saving a story is. But who am I to judge? I already say all of my stories are trash, but people seem to like them, so...**

 **Well, they seem to like the grand total of _three_ stories I have up. Which will really put a definitive age on this story in the future, if people go back and read this when I have god-only-knows how many stories in my arsenal.**

 **Oh and quick warning that this story has a mildly graphic bit. Nothing like someone getting their entrails ripped out of their asses or anything, but just a quick bit describing a particularly nasty injury.**

 **Anyhow, on with the story!**

* * *

This is it. He's the last one. And the only thing in his way from avenging all those lost is this _damnable crystal wall!_

Once more, he set about bashing the weathered crystal leading to what he presumed was that dark witch's throne room.

It crackled and crunched under his assault, but barely wavered. It was more like he was eroding it than doing any actual, significant damage. Luckily, the crystal was already worn partly away, perhaps by another like him.

Or was it he himself that did this, so long ago?

As he slammed against the crystal once more, he began reciting an old story he had heard when he was but a child.

"There's this shepherd's son who's known throughout the land for his wise answers to all questions. Naturally, the emperor of the land hears about this, and demands an audience with the boy." Jaune began, his gravelly croak of a voice warming up slightly.

"So the emperor tells the boy that if he answers three questions for him, he will consider him his son and treat him as such, as royalty." he snarls that last word as he strikes the wall once more.

He can never remember his first two questions, but the last one is what always really counted anyway, so he skipped straight to that part.

"So the emperor asks the shepherd's son "How many seconds are in eternity?", and the shepherd's boy says..." Jaune grunted as he threw another punch at the wall. A shame he couldn't use his sword, but he knew that this crystal was harder than diamond, and he needs to carve a human-sized path through it, which means the only thing he can do to damage it is wide surface area blunt damage. And his feet already hurt from all the running he's done.

"The shepherd's boy says "There's this diamond mountain. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it, and every hundred years, a little birdie comes to sharpen it's beak on the diamond mountain." The emperor gives him this confused look, wondering how this could answer his question, but he allows the boy to proceed."

Jaune can hear it now. That ever-present noise your mind learns to filter out. His heartbeat.

And just beyond the pounding in his ears, he can discern the shuffling and clinking of what could only be an otherworldy entity, here to claim him. But he was so close now, he could see the light on the other side of the crystal. He couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop.

He was shouting now, past the ringing in his ears. ""And when the whole mountain has been chiseled away by this little bird, the first second of eternity will have passed." Now, you may think that's a hell of a long time, but personally -" Jaune screamed as he felt a hand strike his cheek from behind, his flesh searing off as his depleted Aura was helpless to stop the life-ending blow.

And as his skin bubbled and his vision dimmed, Jaune managed to crawl his way away from the wall, and laid down for his final rest.

* * *

Jaune gasped as he awoke, gulping in air greedily while he took in his surroundings. He was in some sort of cave...

Now he remembered. He hid here after that... massacre, hoping to escape whatever had killed his friends and get revenge for their deaths.

He exited the cave, and as he wandered around cavernous crystaline arches and dark stone pathways, he began to feel as if... he had been here before.

As he came across what appeared to be a wall made of dark purple crystal, he felt, in his gut, that this was his destination all along. This is the path to where he will finally end this, once and for all.

He walked forward towards the weathered obstacle, an almost beautiful gem-like material easily ten feet long. Or is it wide in this case? Deep? He didn't know. Regardless, there was already a handy pathway carved through the majority of it, so he walked into it and began slashing and stabbing at it with his blade.

He quickly realized though, that it was having no effect, so he began to pummel it. First with his shoulder, then with his fists when he grew tired.

A word popped into his head, one he'd been thinking of since he'd woken up. **Bird**. It stirred memories in him from his childhood, memories of siting by the fireplace as his grandmother Joan read fairy tales to him. Those were good days...

On a whim, he began reciting the first tale that came to mind, one about a wise shepherd's son and an emperor.

"There's this shepherd's son who's known throughout the land for his wise answers. Any question, no matter how abstract, he has some sort of useful answer to" He began.

Time passed quickly as he recounted the short story, until Jaune came back to his senses when he realized how close the wall was to being completely broken. It was heavily cracked in some places, and thin enough to see the... nothing behind it. Just a white light. Oh well, he's come this far. And judging by that dragging noise behind him, he doesn't have much time.

""And when the whole mountain has been chiseled away by this tiny bird, the first second of eternity will have passed." Now you may think that it's a hell of a long time for that to happen. But personally-" Jaune yelled as he threw the final punch that caused the crystaline wall to crack and crumble. As it fell, the light behind it flared out brilliantly.

Suddenly, all the memories of his pasts came rushing back to him. All versions of him that had found, attacked, and died near this very wall, the same that laid in pieces at his feet. How long had he been here? If his memories were anything to go by, it was a _very_ long time. Four million years, perhaps? He couldn't tell.

And then the knowledge of _why_ he was here arrived.

As he turned around to address the pile of crystals that was once his killer, he finally finished the story he never was able to.

"You may think that's a hell of a long time. Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird."

He turned, closed his eyes, and stepped into the light, and when he reopened them, he was greeted by the sight of his friends, looking on with concern.

* * *

"Jaune! Are you okay? We got here as fast as we could when we were told about what happened!" Ruby's words came out as a rushed plea, worry for her first friend spiking as she saw the same depth in his eyes that she saw in her uncle Qrow's.

"And what is this "Confession Dial" they keep saying they used on you?" Weiss asked.

"I could give you the long story short and it would still take me years to tell you." Jaune chuckled

"All you guys need to know is that they wanted some information from me."

"You didn't give it to them, did you? Whatever is worth capturing you over has to be downright apocalyptic knowledge" Pyrrha inquired. She knew Jaune wasn't fine, considering he hadn't even responded to that particular question, but she also knew that asking him how he really was, in front of everyone, wouldn't go over well.

"No, I didn't tell them." Jaune answered. He leaned forward from his chair and glanced around the concrete room he was being kept in.

"I just took the long way around their methods." He said.

* * *

 **A/N: Alright. Another one, off the docket, hop to!**

 **This one was... meh. It feels a lot more edgy than I was intending. But that's likely because of my own stubborn determination to keep this as obviously Doctor Who-inspired as possible, which doesn't really lend itself to a proper story.**

 **If you're wondering, the episode it's inspired by is "Heaven Sent" from... what, the tenth season of the new Doctor Who? I don't entirely recall.**

 **Sorry if it was trash, and you're welcome if it was amazing. Please, please pretty please leave a review and tell me how I can improve!**

 **Uhh.. outros are hard okay... guess I'll say goodbye in another language because random directly correlates to funny, does it not?**

 **Au revoir!**


End file.
